Volume Two—Chapter Eight.
The next question to be examined into is, has this government of the United States set an example of honour, good faith, and moral principle, to those who are subjected to it?—has it, by so behaving, acted favourably upon the morals of the people, and corrected the vices and errors of the monarchical institutions which the Americans hold up to such detestation?
The Americans may be said to have had, till within the last twenty years, little or no relation with other countries. They have had few treaties to make, and very little diplomatic arrangements with the old Continent. But even if they had had, they must not be judged by them; a certain degree of national honour is necessary to every nation, if they would have the respect of others, and a dread of the consequences would always compel them to adhere to any treaty made with great and powerful countries. The question is, has the Federal Government adhered to its treaties and promises made with and to those who have been too weak to defend themselves? Has it not repeatedly, in the short period of their existence as a nation, violated the national honour whenever without being in fear of retaliation or exposure it has been able to do so. Let this question be answered by an examination into their conduct towards the unhappy Indians, who, to use their own expression, are “now melting away like snow before the white men.” We are not to estimate the morality of a government by its strict adherence to its compacts with the powerful, but by its strict moral sense of justice towards the weak and defenceless; and it should be borne in mind, that one example of a breach of faith on the part of a democratic government, is more injurious to the morals of the people tinder that government than a thousand instances of breach of faith which may occur in society; for a people who have no aristocracy to set the example, must naturally look to the conduct of their rulers and to their decisions, as a standard for their guidance. To enumerate the multiplied breaches of faith towards the Indians would swell out this work to an extra volume. It was a bitter sarcasm of the Seminole chief, who, referring to the terms used in the treaties, told the Indian agents that the white man’s “for ever” did not last long enough. Even in its payment of the trifling sums for the lands sold by the Indians and resold at an enormous profit, the American Government has not been willing to adhere to its agreement; and two years ago, when the Indians came for their money, the American Government told them, like an Israelite dealer, that they must take half money and half goods. The Indians remonstrated; the chiefs replied, “Our young men have purchased upon credit, as they are wont to do; they require the dollars, to pay honestly what they owe.”
“Is our great father so poor?” said one chief to the Indian agent; “I will lend him some money;” and he ordered several thousand dollars to be brought, and offered them to the agent.
In the Florida war, to which I shall again refer, the same want of faith has been exercised. Unable to drive the Indians out of their swamps and morasses, they have persuaded them to come into a council, under a flag of truce. This flag of truce has been violated, and the Indians have been thrown into prison until they could be sent away to the Far West, that is, if they survived their captivity, which the gallant Osceola could not. Let it not be supposed that the officers employed are the parties to blame in these acts; it is, generally speaking, the Indian agents who are employed in these nefarious transactions. Among these agents there are many honourable men, but a corrupt government will always find people corrupt enough to do anything it may wish. But any language that I can use as to the conduct of the American Government towards the Indians would be light, compared to the comments made in my presence by the officers and other American gentlemen upon this subject. Indeed, the indignation expressed is so general, that it proves there is less morality in the Government than there is in the nation.
With the exception of the Florida war, which still continues, the last contest which the American Government had with the Indians was with the Sacs and Foxes, commanded by the celebrated chief, Black Hawk. The Sacs and Foxes at that period held a large tract of land on Rock river, in the territory of Ioway, on the east side of the Mississippi, which the Government wished, perforce, to take from them. The following is Black Hawk’s account of the means by which this land was obtained. The war was occasioned by Black Hawk disowning the treaty and attempting to repossess the territory.
“Some moons after this young chief (Lieutenant Pike) descended the Mississippi, one of our people killed an American, and was confined in the prison at St. Louis for the offence. We held a council at our village to see what could be done for him, which determined that Quash-qua-me, Pa-she-pa-ho, Ou-che-qua-ha, and Ha-she-quar-hi-qua, should go down to St. Louis, and see our American father, and do all they could to have our friend released; by paying for the person killed, thus covering the blood and satisfying the relations of the man murdered! This being the only means with us of saving a person who had killed another, and we then thought it was the same way with the whites.
“The party started with the good wishes of the whole nation, hoping they would accomplish the object of their mission. The relations of the prisoner blacked their faces and fasted, hoping the Great Spirit would take pity on them, and return the husband and the father to his wife and children.
“Quash-qua-me and party remained a long time absent. They at length returned, and encamped a short distance below the village, but did not come up that day, nor did any person approach their camp. They appeared to be dressed in fine coats and had medals. From these circumstances, we were in hopes they had brought us good news. Early the next morning, the council lodge was crowded; Quash-qua-me and party came up, and gave us the following account of their mission:—
“On their arrival at St. Louis, they met their American father, and explained to him their business, and urged the release of their friend. The American chief told them he wanted land, and they agreed to give him some on the west side of the Mississippi, and some on the Illinois side, opposite the Jeffreon. When the business was all arranged, they expected to have their friend released to come home with them. But about the time they were ready to start, their friend, who was led out of prison, ran a short distance, and was shot dead. This is all they could recollect of what was said and done. They had been drunk the greater part of the time they were in St. Louis.
“This is all myself or nation knew of the treaty of 1804. It has been explained to me since. I find by that treaty, all our country east of the Mississippi, and south of the Jeffreon, was ceded to the United States for one thousand dollars a year! I will leave it to the people of the United States to say, whether our nation was properly represented in this treaty? or whether we received a fair compensation for the extent of country ceded by those four individuals. I could say much mere about this treaty, but I will not at this time. It has been the origin of all our difficulties.”
Indeed, I have reason to believe that the major portion of the land obtained from the Indians has been ceded by parties who had no power to sell it, and the treaties with these parties have been enforced by the Federal Government.
In a Report for the protection of the Western Frontier, submitted to Congress by the Secretary of War, we have a very fair exposé of the conduct and intentions of the American Government towards the Indians. Although the Indians continue to style the President of the United States as their Great Father, yet, in this report, the Indian feeling which really exists towards the American people is honestly avowed; it says in its preamble—
“As yet no community of feeling, except of deep and lasting hatred to the white man, and particularly to the Anglo-Americans, exists among them, and, unless they coalesce, no serious difficulty need be apprehended from them. Not so, however, should they be induced to unite for purposes offensive and defensive; their strength would then become apparent, create confidence, and in all probability induce them to give vent to their long-suppressed desire to revenge past wrongs, which is restrained, as they openly and freely confess, by fear alone.”
And speaking of the feuds between the tribes, as in the case of the Sioux and Chippeways, which, as I have observed in my Journal, the American Government pretended to be anxious to make up; it appears that this anxiety is not so very great, for the Report says—
“Should it however prove otherwise, the United States will, whenever they choose, be able to bring the whole of the Sioux force (the hereditary and irreclaimable enemy to every other Indian) to bear against the hostiles; or vice versa, should our difficulty be with the Sioux nation. And the suggestion is made, whether prudence does not require, that those hereditary feelings should not rather be maintained than destroyed by efforts to cultivate a closer reunion between them.”
This Report also very delicately points out, when speaking of the necessity of a larger force on the frontier, that, “it is merely adverted to in connexion with the heavy obligations which rest upon the Government, and which have been probably contracted from time to time without any very nice calculation of the means which would be necessary to a faithful discharge of them.”
I doubt whether this Report would have been presented by Congress had there been any idea of its finding its way to the Old Country. By-and-by I shall refer to it again. I have made these few extracts merely to shew that expediency, and not moral feeling, is the principle alone which guides the Federal Government of the United States.
The next instance which I shall bring forward to prove the want of principle of the Federal Government is its permitting, and it may be said tacitly acquiescing, in the seizure of the province of Texas, and allowing it to be ravished from the Mexican Government, with whom they were on terms of amity, but who was unfortunately too weak to help herself. In this instance the American Government had no excuse, as it actually had an army on the frontier, and could have compelled the insurgents to go back; but no; it perceived that the Texas, if in its hands, or if independent of Mexico, would become a mart for their extra slave population, that it was the finest country in the world for producing cotton, and that it would be an immense addition of valuable territory. Dr Channing’s letter to Mr Clay is so forcible on this question, enters so fully into the merits of the case, and points out so clearly the nefariousness of the transaction, that I shall now quote a few passages from this best of American authority. Indeed, I consider that this letter of Dr Channing is the principal cause why the American Government have not as yet admitted Texas into the Union. The efforts of the Northern States would not have prevented it, but it has actually been shamed by Dr Channing, who says—
“The United States have not been just to Mexico. Our citizens did not steal singly, silently, in disguise, into that land. Their purpose of dismembering Mexico, and attaching her distant province to this country, was not wrapt in mystery. It was proclaimed in our public prints. Expeditions were openly fitted out within our borders for the Texan war. Troops were organised, equipped, and marched for the scene of action. Advertisements for volunteers, to be enrolled and conducted to Texas at the expense of that territory, were inserted in our newspapers. The Government, indeed, issued its proclamation, forbidding these hostile preparations; but this was a dead letter. Military companies, with officers and standards, in defiance of proclamations, and in the face of day, directed their steps to the revolted province. We had, indeed, an army near the frontiers of Mexico. Did it turn back these invaders of a land with which we were at peace? On the contrary, did not its presence give confidence to the revolters? After this, what construction of our conduct shall we force on the world, if we proceed, especially at this moment, to receive into our Union the territory, which, through our neglect, has fallen a prey to lawless invasion? Are we willing to take our place among robber-states? As a people have we no self-respect? Have we no reverence for national morality? Have we no feeling of responsibility to other nations, and to Him by whom the fates of nations are disposed?”
Dr Channing then proceeds:—
“Some crimes by their magnitude have a touch of the sublime; and to this dignity the seizure of Texas by our citizens is entitled. Modern times furnish no example of individual rapine on so grand a scale. It is nothing less than the robbery of a realm. The pirate seizes a ship. The colonists and their coadjutors can satisfy themselves with nothing short of an empire. They have left their Anglo-Saxon ancestors behind them. Those barbarians conformed to the maxims of their age, to the rude code of nations in time of thickest heathen darkness. They invaded England under their sovereigns, and with the sanction of the gloomy religion of the North. But it is in a civilised age, and amidst refinements of manners; it is amidst the lights of science and the teachings of Christianity; amidst expositions of the law of nations and enforcements of the law of universal love; amidst institutions of religion, learning, and humanity, that the robbery of Texas has found its instruments. It is from a free, well-ordered, enlightened Christian country, that hordes have gone forth in open day, to perpetrate this mighty wrong.”
I shall conclude my remarks upon this point with one more extract from the same writer.
“A nation, provoking war by cupidity, by encroachment, and, above all, by efforts to propagate the curse of slavery, is alike false to itself, to God, and to the human race.”
Having now shewn how far the Federal Government may be considered as upholding the purity of its institutions by the example of its conduct towards others, let us examine whether in its domestic management it sets a proper example to the nation. It cries out against the bribery and corruption of England. Is it itself free from this imputation?
The author of a ‘Voice from America’ observes, “In such an unauthorised, unconstitutional, and loose state of things, millions of the public money may be appropriated to electioneering and party purposes, and to buy up friends of the administration, without being open to proof or liable to account. It is a simple matter of fact, that all the public funds lost in this way, have actually gone to buy up friends to the government, whether the defalcations were matters of understanding between the powers at Washington and these parties, or not. The money is gone, and is going; and it goes to friends. So much is true, whatever else is false. And what has already been used up in this way, according to official report, is sufficient to buy the votes of a large fraction of the population of the United States,—that is to say, sufficient to produce an influence adequate to secure them. On the 17th of January, 1838, the United States treasurer reported to Congress sixty-three defalcators (individuals), in all to the amount of upwards of a million of dollars, without touching the vast amounts lost in the local banks,—a mere beginning of the end.”
As I have before observed, when Mr Adams was President, a Mr B Walker was thrown into prison for being a defaulter to the extent of eighteen thousand dollars. Why are none of these defaulters to the amount of upwards a million of dollars punished? If the government thinks proper to allow them to remain at liberty, does it not virtually wink at their dishonesty. Neither the defaulters nor their securities are touched. It would appear as if it were an understood arrangement; the government telling these parties, who have assisted them, “we cannot actually pay you money down for your services; but we will put money under your control, and you may, if you please, help yourself.” What has been the result of this conduct upon society?—that as the government does not consider a breach of faith as deserving of punishment, society does not think so either; and thus are the people demoralised, not only by the example of government in its foreign relations, but by its leniency towards those individuals who are as regardless of faith as the government has proved to be itself.
Indeed, it may be boldly asserted, that in every measure taken by the Federal Government, the moral effect of that measure upon the people has never been thought worthy of a moment’s consideration.